www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A mobile VAS application called ‘Socially’ has been launched by Reliance Communications giving access to social networks including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn through a single client. The most interesting part of this app is that callers recent status updates are shown after receiving the call.

Users can download this application from RWorld and subscribe to the service at Rs. 10 for 30 days. They will not have to pay any additional browsing charges.

Socially is 3G ready, and ready to be extended to 3G networks in India. Earlier, Tata DoCoMo launched its BuddyNet users at a price point of Rs. 10 for 30 days with no additional browsing charges.

Mumbai and Singapore based Antarix Networks founded by former ITFinity exec Nagesh Rao developed Socially.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: About 60 million subscribers of Tata Teleservices in India are going to witness another unique level of customer care services and customer experience. The GSM and CDMA operator while unleashing an interesting initiative has decided that if the company fails to meet pre-determined levels of service standards, the subscribers would be compensated with monetary benefits.

Almost all the spectrum of customer complaints has been covered in the current service charter of the company, thus enhancing customer experience.  If issues related to bill disputes, call drop, handset replacement and deficiency in service standards remain unresolved for 3 days; customers will get a benefit of $ 0.55 for every additional day to resolve the complaint. If the Call drops increases from promised 1.5 percent of total calls, 2.5 per cent of the customer’s last billed amount will be refunded. Trials for the value added service will also be provided by TTSL.

After the implementation of mobile number portability (MNP) from May, the new customer service will help TTSL to retain its customers which will continue to avail the service owing to improved customer experience. With so many operators with similar rates and no differentiation, customer experience is expected to become the key focus area in the future. The initiative also aims at commemorating the 171st birth anniversary of Tata Group founder, Sir Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata.

The service is expected to be extended to all the subscribers of Tata DoCoMo and Virgin Mobile in India. Apart from the above mentioned services, a customer will also receive a loaner handset if a handset could not be repaired over the counter at TTSL’s I-Care centers.

Subscribers can also access the call centers 24 hours and seven days a week and would be answered within 90 seconds. If the call is not answered within the stipulated time period, the company would call the customer back within two hours.

With so many offers rolled out by TTSL, the customers are really going to have a gala time enjoying all these facilities while the other operators will take a plunge with similar services to retain their customers. But as of now, TTSL has already scored a notch above others.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Mobile banking, mobile chatting, information on demand, wallpapers, games and what not. Tata DoCoMo subscribers can enjoy all these facilities as the telco has partnered digital security firm Gemalto to offer these SIM based services and applications.

The service by DoCoMo will support both Hindi and English and the user will be asked for his preference while activating the service. User preference and choices will also be remembered by the service so that the user gets preferred content as real time updates.

According to the company, if an ongoing cricket series is selected by a user as an option, then he will receive all related content on his mobile without having to stream the news from the menu service tab.

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www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Virgin mobile famous for targeting youths in its promotions has launched its GSM service in the Maharashtra and Mumbai circles. 20 paise per minute for Virgin-to-Virgin calls across any circles will be charged to the subscribers across Maharashtra and Mumbai. The rates would be 40 paise per minute for local and 50 paise per minute for STD calls for other networks.
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he consumers can also opt for another plan that provides all local and STD calls at 1 paise per second with a recharge of Rs. 12 and with a talk time of Rs. 10.88, valid for 365 days.

Tata DoCoMo has tied up with Virgin Mobile to offer its GSM services in the country and Virgin has tied up with Tata Indicom for its CDMA network. 10% of the market of Virgin mobile comprises of the urban youth segment.

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www.WirelessFederation.com/news: India’s hunger for real-time information and infotainment has attracted the attention of Russian telco MTS which is shifting from mobile voice to mobile data services. It has been expected by the company that the markets will expand beyond just corporate users for data to include small to medium enterprises (SMEs), students and small households.

MTS biggest rivals in India are the companies like Reliance, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Tata Docomo providing postpaid services to its customers. According to Vsevolod Rozanov, president and CEO of Sistema Shyam Teleservices, it difficult to win existing customers of other operators but the company would fight the battle for new customers.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The tariff war engulfing India’s telecommunication industry and extreme competition in the telecom market is likely to hit the profits of the telecom operators in the October-December quarter.  A decline of 6% to 13% is expected in Average revenue per user, or ARPU.

Only Bharti Airtel Ltd is expected to post an ARPU of more than INR200 in the fiscal third quarter. The price war was started by Tata DoCoMo by introducing per-second billing plans in June. Reliance Communications Ltd. joined the league with a plan in October by offering INR0.5 per minute, and subsequently all operators launched per-second schemes.

Aggressive billing plans launched by new players entering the market also forced established companies to slash call charges to acquire and retain customers.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The launch of GSM-based services in Gujarat under Tata DoCoMo banner of Indian mobile network operator Tata Teleservices (TTSL) will be delayed to January, the company revealed.

According to COO of TTSL Naveen Bhasin, the company has not been able to launch the services in the state because the government did not release the spectrum allocated to them.

Earlier the company had planed of launching DoCoMo by 15 December.

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Tariff war raises concern in India

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The brutal price war rocking India for the past few months may certainly be lucrative for customers but it has raised the concern of the analysts, who could not see any end for this bloodbath. The latest offer by Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited of as little as half a paisa (100 paisa are in a rupee) a second for a call, India’s telecoms market, already the cheapest in the world, just got cheaper.

The rapidly growing telecom market of India, which already has about 500m subscribers and adds about 10m new users a month, is considered one of the key drivers of its economic growth in recent years.

Analysts believe the industry may have too many operators chasing a market in which subscriber numbers are high but average monthly spending by users on phone calls is very low.

After the first shot in the current price war was fired earlier this year by Tata DoCoMo, other telecom operators joining the game and the continuously plunging call rates have made telecoms the worst performing sector in India’s stock market, going down by 27 per cent this year.

The government’s plan to introduce number portability at the end of this month, in which users can retain their existing mobile number while swapping between vendors is, expected to promote another round of price competition.

Whatever concerns the industry analysts may have, the festival of low rate has just begun for the consumers.

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Adding a new spice to the latest tariff war in the world’s fastest-growing cellular market, India, Vodafone Essar, reduced its roaming charges by more than 50% besides offering the option for per-second pulse.

The pay per second plan launched by TATA DoCoMo has made the other operators to join the war.  Some are even coming up with other lucrative plans like 50 paise per minute, for all types of calls, local as well as roaming by Reliance Communications and to 60 paisa per minute roaming charges by Bharti Airtel.

Though the customers are benefiting a lot from this tariff war, the mobile operators are losing out on revenues. The stock prices of listed telecom operators like Bharti Airtel, RelCom and others are sliding.

One of the major reasons behind this war is to attract the new users as new operators are entering the market. Norway’s Telenor launch made it the 12th operator playing in the Indian market while, Arab’s second-biggest carrier Etisalat is planning to enter India.

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www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Moving one step ahead of the pay per second system, Norway-based firm Telenor, entered Indian market with 29 paise per minute plan under the brand name Uninor. The company has tied up with India’s Unitech Group and will be launched in seven circles — UP (East), Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, UP (West) and Bihar.

According to the CEO and President of Telenor group, Jon Fredrik Baksaas, the new plan offers more value for money to the users as the consumers want something more than the usual features. The pay per second billing was first launched by TATA DoCoMo, followed by other operators.

According to Unitech Wireless Managing Director Stein-Erik Vellan, the company’s target is to occupy 8% of the market share by 2018 and operate cash-flow break-even in five years.

Besides, the company also expects that the average revenue per user (ARPU) becomes lower than the industry level in the near term. However, Unitech is susceptible about bidding in the 3G auction but at the same time it has made it clear that it will surely not bid for an all India license.

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